


little beginnings

by izabellwit



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alma Karma Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Healing, Hope, Kanda Yuu Swears a Lot, M/M, POV Kanda Yuu, Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, things aren't okay yet but they are gonna MAKE it okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 18:16:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18900010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/izabellwit/pseuds/izabellwit
Summary: In another world, Alma does not die in Mater. Beginnings are harder to cope with than endings, but together they’ll make it through.





	little beginnings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FaeriexQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaeriexQueen/gifts).



> For Fae: Happy birthday, my friend!!! I am sadly out-of-practice with writing romance, but I hope this fic makes you smile regardless! ✨

 

It takes a while for them to realize. To notice the slow regeneration, the unnatural bloody red of Alma’s skin fading back into a healthier hue, his sight returning little by little, minute by agonizing minute. His bones creak and break as they reform into something more proportionate; Alma never cries, but his breathing is labored, shaky with agony.

Perhaps that is why they don’t realize until the end: because the regeneration is slow, and painful, and they are both of them too realistic to think it’s anything good. Alma is waiting to die and Kanda, for his part, just waits—and waits, and waits, and _waits,_ Alma a heavy weight in his arms, his eyes open despite his exhaustion because he will _not,_ he will not look away, he will stay here by Alma’s side until Alma is gone. He can do this much. He can do this little.

So they’re awake and still unaware, the both of them, when Alma starts coughing. He spasms and jerks like he’s having a seizure, his every breath wheezing and wet with blood. He’s crying, and Kanda is clutching him close in a vain attempt at comfort. And in that moment, Kanda is terrified. He’s grit-toothed and silent, almost angry but most of all afraid, because what if—what if this is it, Alma’s last, _in pain_ — 

Alma turns, wrenching himself away—too fast for Kanda to react, and he can feel his throat close up, the pull at his heart that’s almost grief—turns away, falling on his knees and elbows on the ground, and retches black bile onto the Mater stone. Black bile and blood and an Akuma egg that withers into dust and blows away the moment it hits the ground. And Alma—Alma, fully regenerated, blue-eyed and coughing and _alive—_ still there. Still breathing.

That’s when the realization hits.

Kanda is still. Still, stone-cold, trying to quiet the brief hope in his chest because _Alma,_ Alma is laughing, quiet and broken and shuddering, laughing like he’s trying not to scream.

“Ah,” Alma says, soft and thin and shaking. “Ah, I see. So God won’t let me die after all.” He’s crying, Kanda realizes. Crying and shaking, and Kanda—doesn’t know what to say, this time. Doesn’t know the right words, because he understands, in some way, on some level—understands, and yet. Yet.

Alma is still here.

“Of course,” Alma says. His voice breaks on the words, raspy from screaming. “Of course.”

-

Eventually, they have to move.

It is Kanda who stands first, well aware of the hunger biting his insides and the weakness weighing him down. He is so exhausted that he nearly tips over, and he has to support himself on a pillar to stand at all. Alma watches him struggle with an expression that Kanda hates on sight, something wretched and guilty.

“Sorry,” Alma whispers, watching Kanda struggle to catch his breath. “Sorry, Yuu.”

“Shut up, I know,” Kanda replies, and there’s no bite to it. He’s too breathless to be irritated. Too tired to think. He could almost laugh, except there’s nothing funny about this at all; in surviving they now have to deal with all the things they’ve been ignoring, like the near-death and age-old grief and regret. Dying, at least, would have made it easy.

He shoves that thought away as soon as it forms, though, because—because it doesn’t matter, does it, it doesn’t matter if it’s hard or painful or awkward as hell. If they’re going to have to talk about all the terrible shit then Kanda will bear it. Because Alma is still here, and Alma is worth it, and—and because in hindsight Kanda should have said all of this a long, long time ago.

So: “It’s fine,” Kanda says, “It’s fine, stop apologizing. I don’t care about that. I—” 

 He stumbles on the words, bites it back. Takes another breath. “It’s okay,” Kanda says instead, and he’s always been shit at speaking gentle but for some reason it’s easier, when it’s Alma. “It’s okay.”

Alma, leaning weakly against a pillar and still looking paler than death, stares up at Kanda with something he cannot name. Like it’s hurting Alma to see him, maybe, but also like Kanda is a dream he can hardly believe is real.

“Okay,” Alma says, and his voice is so quiet. In all the time Kanda has known him, Alma has never been quiet. He hates it. It makes him feel small, makes him want to break something.

Kanda offers him a hand instead, because if he tried to punch a wall now, he’d probably just shatter his hand. Alma stares at him. He isn’t moving.

“I meant it,” Kanda says. He feels abruptly very nervous and cannot, for the life of him, figure out why. “A place—a place where the Order can’t reach. Together.” He hesitates. “We can go… anywhere. Anywhere you want.”

Alma’s expression shutters and breaks. “I—I don’t know where to go.”

“Right.” Right, of course, Kanda thinks. He’s an idiot, of course Alma wouldn’t— “That’s fine. Then… I’ll tell you where I’ve been, and—and you can decide.”

It’s not quite a question but at the same time, it is. It’s an offer. It’s a future. It’s a choice: to live or to die, and for once Kanda has no idea what Alma will do, if he’ll take Kanda’s hand or decide to stay here, lost in the depths this forgotten city until he finally and truly crumbles to dust.

Alma looks at him for a long, long moment. Kanda does not move. And then, at long last—Alma reaches up, and takes Kanda’s hand.

Kanda doesn’t sigh in relief, or relax, or anything so obvious—but he takes Alma’s hand and grips it tight. He’s not letting go. He’s not letting go ever again.

“All right,” Alma says. He sounds so tired. His smile is weak and trembling and watery on his pale face. “All right, Yuu. T-tell me. Tell me everything.”

“I will,” Kanda says. He helps Alma to his feet, frowning abruptly at a sudden thought. “But first we should probably find something to eat.”

Alma gives a faint half-smile. “Probably,” he agrees. Kanda nods, loops his arm over his shoulders, and looks away.

It’s strange. It’s _awkward_. He realizes that, in all the years since they were kids, Kanda has only ever thought of Alma either stubbornly not-at-all or as he was at the end. He—he doesn’t know how to talk to Alma, anymore. He doesn’t know how to be. This whole peace is like a dream, and Kanda is startled to find that he’s terrified of breaking it. He has never once dreamed of seeing Alma again, and he isn’t sure what to do now that he finally has him back.

But then Alma says, “Ah, Yuu, you got tall!” And Kanda replies, on absolute automatic, “That’s called growing up, you idiot,” and Alma—laughs, a little, a weak giggle that even he seems surprised by.

But still: Alma laughs.

And suddenly Kanda is not as afraid as he once was.

-

They are limping their way out of Mater, dressed in the stolen clothes of the long-dead, heading towards a distant cluster of houses on the horizon, when Alma speaks again.

“I’m sorry.”

Kanda keeps his eyes on the sky. It’s very blue and bright and annoying. His eyes still hurt. Everything still hurts. That’s annoying too. “I know,” he says.

Alma sighs at him. “You don’t even know what I’m sorry for.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Kanda says dismissively. “Probably something stupid. I still know, it’s still fine, shut up and stop apologizing.”

Alma’s eyelids flicker. His smile is a quiet, careful thing; it curls at the edges of his lips, half-hidden behind his fringe. “You haven’t changed at all,” he says, soft. And then, before Kanda can respond to that: “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

Kanda—hesitates. His steps falter and his breath stutters, and he stops, just for a moment, just to catch his breath.

Alma stops too, lingering beside him. Kanda can’t, won’t, look at him—but he can hear the grief in Alma’s voice regardless. “I’m sorry I didn’t want to,” he whispers. “I just—I didn’t want—even if it meant—” He stops, unable to voice it. This time, Kanda looks back. Alma is gritting his teeth, looking furious with himself; his eyes are fixed on the earth.

Kanda watches him struggle. He doesn’t say anything.

“I didn’t want to lose you,” Alma says, finally. “Even if it meant… you never knew. I didn’t want to lose you. I, I thought… if you were always looking, then, you would always be…”

He trails off and looks away, as if afraid to face him. Kanda is quiet for a long time. “I know,” he says, at last. He’s not sure what to say, or how to say it. He tries regardless. “I told you, I heard you and the Beansprout talking. So it’s—it’s fine.”

Alma’s eyes are fixed on the ground. His mouth is pursed. He doesn’t look happy and it makes something in Kanda’s gut go tight.

But Alma doesn’t say anything more, and in the end, they continue on in silence.

-

The silent treatment lasts until deep into the night.

It lasts until Kanda, starting to feel much better and at the very least less tired, turns to Alma and says: “What the hell happened to upset you _now_?”

Alma glares at him. Kanda glares back. He has, abruptly, the sudden sense of deja-vu, of being nine-years-old and picking fights even after they were friends, because “good terms” meant little when faced with the combined flare of their admittedly equally terrible tempers.

“Maybe I’m just tired,” Alma snaps. He still looks pretty awful; red-eyed and weary and thin. “Maybe everything’s just hit me. Maybe I just want to sleep, Yuu!”

Kanda crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. “Bullshit,” he says flatly. He’s certain of it. For all the years and all the distance, for some reason he can still read Alma as well as he did when they were kids. It’s only talking that’s an issue. Talking has always been their issue. “Just—” He stops, mouth twisting, but this is _Alma,_ and if Kanda doesn’t ask then Alma will never get out and ask it. He sighs. “Just _talk_ to me, damn it.”

Alma looks away. He looks away for so long and in such silence that Kanda’s anger fades right into tension. He’s bracing himself, and maybe it’s an over-reaction, but at the same time—maybe it’s for a good reason. The look on Alma’s face, reluctant and drawn, makes Kanda wish for Mugen, if only for the comfort of having it nearby.

“Yuu—” Alma says, and then he grits his teeth. “I… I don’t—I don’t mind that you know who I—was. Not really. I just… Yuu, I can’t stop wondering, if… all this. This future and travel and—escaping the Order, just the two of us, is it—is it because I’m ‘that person?’ Because I know, now, I get why you—wanted to live, back then, I _get_ it. I get it. I know you care for… ‘that person.’ But. But do _I—”_

_“Shut up,”_ Kanda snaps, and he feels like he’s been slapped. Or maybe stabbed. Something sharp and sudden and painful, a spike to the heart. “That’s—it’s—” Goddamn, emotions. He closes his eyes and breathes past the bite of anger; he’s not actually angry, not really. It’s just hard to say. It’s always been hard to say, but if there’s one thing Kanda finally understands about Alma, it’s that sometimes these things have to be said.

He takes another breath, and then another, trying to think the words through. Alma has gone quiet. He’s watching him, now, the same way Kanda was earlier—waiting for the answer.

“Even if you weren’t,” Kanda says finally, and he has to force the words out, it’s so hard to say. “Even if you weren’t… ‘that person,’ I—nothing would have changed. I still would have tried. We’d still be here.” For all that he’d been searching for ‘that person,’ this is true, too: the one person Kanda wished to save from the Order, the one person he ever dreamed of escaping with, has always been Alma.

That Alma might not know this—that he thinks the only reason Kanda cares is because he is ‘that person’—the very idea of it sends a spike of fear through his heart. “Alma,” he says, sharp and insistent. “When I—nine years ago.” He still can’t say it, can’t quite admit it aloud, but when Alma lifts his head, Kanda meets him eye to eye.

“I wanted to live,” Kanda admits. “But I always thought—after. After I found ‘that person.’ Then… then that’d be it. I could die in peace, or whatever the fuck. And I thought… if I was lucky enough to end up where you were, then I’d find you, and—” _Apologize,_ he doesn’t say, but Alma looks up and Kanda knows he’s heard it anyway.

“You mattered,” Kanda says, before Alma can open his mouth and blurt out something terribly emotional that will end up embarrassing them both. “You—still matter, you always mattered, you— matter. To me. You _idiot._ ”

“Oh,” Alma says. He blinks rapidly, one two three, and then he smiles. It’s a terribly bright smile, and Kanda looks away so he doesn’t have to see the tears in Alma’s eyes. “Oh.”

For a long time, neither of them speaks. The night sky above them is clear and cold. The wind whistles through the lone dead trees. They are alone, standing still, unable to look at each other—and then Alma laughs, soft and little weepy, and says, “Oh, we’re a mess, aren’t we?”

Kanda sighs, and it’s like all the tension has broken, now, normalcy returned. He crosses his arms and leans back against a stick-thin and withered tree. “Probably,” he says, almost amused at the thought. He kicks his foot in the dirt and thinks, with morbid amusement, that dying really would have saved them a whole boatload of awkwardness. And yet… “We have time, now,” Kanda says, and it’s a bizarre thought, but not a bad one. “To get better, or some shit like that.”

Alma laughs again, and this time it’s _definitely_ weepy, startled and wavering with something like hope. “Time,” he says. He sounds wondering. “Time.”

Kanda hums in reply and closes his eyes, and will never, ever admit to his own smile. 

-

They reach those distant houses and the town they border almost four days later, and it has never been so clear to Kanda then, in that moment, just how strange the world must be to Alma. But then, of course it is strange— Alma, who spent his three years of childhood underground and the last nine years in a vague, half-sleeping state, aware but unwilling to awaken—he has never experienced a city, or other people. So despite the fact the town is small and rural and not one of the locals speaks a lick of English (which is terrible, because Kanda knows how to say absolutely jack shit in Italian), when they limp through the streets Alma’s eyes are wide and his face white with shock, stunned by the sheer weight of it all.

Kanda can remember this feeling. He thinks, in the same way that pale blue sky looked meaningless after he’d killed Alma and then abruptly terrifying once he’d woken up, that this town and its empty horizon are the first time the world has registered to Alma. The outside, the unknown territory, the places Edgar could only show them in books. As a child Alma had taken those stories and breathed them in like air; as an adult he looks terrified, afraid of knowing for certain if they were ever true.

Kanda clenches his jaw and steers them to a small bistro at the end of the street. It’s a tiny place, with compact windows and old oak walls heavy with flowering ivy. He sits them down in the corner, the lone outside table, and argues with the bistro owner in an attempt to let them stay. He is pretending not to notice the way Alma stares at the world around them, the worn cobble streets and grapevine fields, the blank blue sky and the horizon stretching on and on and on, limitless and forever.

Eventually the woman running the bistro lets them be, and by the time Kanda turns back around Alma has stopped staring at the world and is instead looking at him. For the first time since they left Mater, since survival made Alma’s expression go tight with pain and grief, Alma looks—not as tired. Not as upset. The lines around his eyes have eased, the tension gone from his shoulders. He looks older, a little worn… but settled, too, settled in a way Kanda never thought Alma could be. His expression is soft. He’s smiling.

“Thank you, Yuu,” Alma says. His voice is hushed, peaceful. Kanda looks away.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” he says, and hisses through his teeth when Alma kicks him under the table.

Alma’s eyes are bright. Kanda tries not to stare. “Thanks anyway,” Alma says, a little less quiet but no less warm. It makes something within Kanda go tight and small to hear it, that unfettered regard, that boundless affection. It strikes him, then, sudden and sharp: he’s missed this. He’s missed Alma. How funny. He’s been missing Alma all along, missing Alma for nine straight years, and he’s only understanding this now, just when he’s got him back.

Kanda realizes, abruptly, that he’s staring—Alma’s smile is starting to flicker—and wrenches his gaze away, snapping his mouth shut into a scowl. Then he stops, and grits his teeth, because—Alma. This is Alma, and Kanda had already decided, a week ago in Mater, when he finally believed Alma wouldn’t die after all: he’s not letting go. He’s not letting go ever again.

“I missed you,” Kanda says haltingly, and it’s like pulling teeth—but it’s true, too, and he wants to say it. He wants Alma to know this. In some ways, Kanda has been missing Alma for forever.

Alma doesn’t say anything, and when Kanda looks back at him, his eyes are wide, his mouth parted in surprise. He seems startled, a little stunned—and then he softens, and for the first time since they left Mater, for the first time since they arrived at this small town in the middle of nowhere—Alma smiles, and it is real. It stretches nearly ear-to-ear. There are tears in his eyes, and he is trying to blink them away, but even then his smile never falters.

Kanda could almost laugh. It’s a sight so familiar it hurts, because in this way—in this way, Alma hasn’t changed at all.

“Yuu,” Alma says. “I know I didn’t—that I wasn’t—happy to survive, when we were in Mater. But I. I missed you, too.” He is blinking fast. “Even though I… I, I’m happy, Yuu. I’m so happy to have this. To be here with you.”

Kanda looks away. “If you don’t want to—” he starts, and he was wrong before, _this,_ this is the hardest thing he’s ever had to say but he will _not_ be selfish, not this time. He won’t take this away. If Alma wants to go, then Kanda will let him, even if that means having to kill him a second time.

But— “No,” Alma says, and he says it slowly but he says it with certainty, and the relief that hits Kanda then is dizzying. “No. More than anything, I just… want to stay with you.”

“Ah,” Kanda says. He lets out a slow sigh, feeling his shoulders slump. He leans forward and rests his head in his hands. “That’s fine.”

Alma hums, warm and amused. Then he says, “I love you, Yuu.”

It’s blunt and sure and so _entirely_ like Alma—and somehow that makes it easier, makes it the easiest thing in the world, for Kanda to lift his head and reply: “I love you too.”

Alma’s smile is surprised and sudden and as bright as the sun, and for the first time since he awoke on the floor of the North American branch, staring down at that familiar face and thinking _that’s impossible—_ for the first time in a long, long time, Kanda knows they will be okay.

This time, he smiles back.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Not pictured: Kanda and Alma absolutely walked to that town supporting each other even long past when they really needed the help and they both pretended to be more tired than they actually were so they could keep holding onto each other. Like the morons they are. (They'll get better though!)


End file.
